The Impact of Transformational Leadership and Perceived Leadership Effectiveness on Organizational Commitment of Public Sector Workers in Kwara State, Nigeria

The importance of leadership in organizational outcome cannot be overstated. This study showed that perceived leadership effectiveness predicts positive organizational outcome in Nigeria better than transformational leadership when paired together. However, because of its inherent positive attributes, transformational leadership when augmented by leadership effectiveness and practices can make public institutions more effective and efficient in its service delivery and in its response to the citizenry. Findings from this survey research support the general theory that leadership is a major determinant of organizational outcome and supports the universal applicability of transformational leadership theories. Article Information Article History: Received December 2020 Approved January 2021 Published March 2021


INTRODUCTION
Extant literature has shown that transformational leadership theory has gained robust research interest in the field of leadership and has become one of the most researched leadership constructs in recent time. This view is supported by the work of Burns (1978); Bass (1985); and Perreault et al. (2016) -all of whom posited that transformational leadership theory is one of the most researched leadership areas of the last two decades; yet, most research on leadership phenomenon centers on Western populations of North America and Western Europe. Though scholars like Yokochi-Bryce (1989) in Japan, and Ardichvili and Gasparishvili (2001) in Eastern Europe have extended the universal applicability of transformational leadership theory -and while the results of these studies -both in the dominant Western context and the emerging non-Western context -have provided a useful framework for the understanding and application of transformational leadership theory across the globe, there remains a great need to test transformational leadership theory further in non-Western contexts, particularly in Africa, as studies on management and leadership practices in Africa are scant in comparison to other regions of the world (Steers et al., 2010).
Previous research examining the impact of transformational leadership in the Nigerian police (Adebayo, 2005), Nigerian public universities, (Othman et al., 2013), Nigerian small and medium enterprises (Obiwuru et al., 2011), and the Nigerian banking sector (Fasola et al., 2013) are available; yet, there is a dearth of research on the impact of transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness on employee outcomes in the Nigerian public sector. The present research extends the scholarship by showing the moderating effect of leadership effectiveness and the causal relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment.
The main purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the impact of transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness on Nigerian government employees serving in ministries, departments, and agencies. Transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness theories support the research frame-work of this study.
Investigating the impact that transformational leaders have on followers has the potential to lead to a better understanding of employee organizational commitment and collective efficacy. This study adds to the call by Owen (2013) for more research on transformational leadership from a wider global context and to examine the influence of such constructs as leadership outcomes, collective efficacy, self-efficacy, and organizational commitment.

Theoretical Framework
This research drew from the pioneer works of Burns (1978), Bass (1985), and , who theorized about transformational leadership theory and how leaders influence followers to act beyond their own self-interest in furtherance of organizational or group objectives. Fiedler and Chemer's (1967) work on perceived leadership effectiveness and Porter, Steers, Mowday, and Boulian's (1974) work on organizational commitment are critical pillars that will guide the study. The three theories that undergird this research will be explained in Figure 1 and in more details to follow.

Hypotheses Development
As leadership studies evolve, a growing need exists to measure how effective leaders are and their impact on organizations. LaPort (2012) attributed leadership effectiveness to leadership traits and identified cognition, personality, motivation, and social traits as important in deter-mining the effectiveness of leaders. Fiedler and Chemers (1967) advanced the contingency theory while Judge and Piccolo (2004) attributed leadership effectiveness to leadership styles that there is no one best style of leadership and that a leader's effectiveness is based on the situation in which the leadership is being exercised. Vroom and Yetton (1973) decision model and Hersey and Blanchard's (1977) situational leadership styles are leadership approaches that have advanced the term "leadership effectiveness" Bass (1985) advanced the theory of transformational leadership as a leadership effectiveness style that helps leaders move beyond the quid pro quo transactional approach to leadership that is based on shared values and the adoption of group goals over individual interests. Hogan et al. (1994) suggested that "leadership effectiveness concerns judgments about a leader's impact on an organization's bottom line, the profitability of a business unit, the quality of services rendered, market share gained, or the win-loss record of a team" (p. 4).Therefore, leadership effectiveness is contingent on the traits, styles, and situations that the leader exercises. Some of the tools used to measure leadership effectiveness are: The Least Preferred Co-Worker Scale by Fiedler (1967); Leadership Skills Inventory by Karnes and Chauvin (1985); The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire by Bass and Avolio (1995); and Leader Preference Scale by Ehrhart and Klein (2001) and Ehrhart (2012).
The Least Preferred Co-Worker Scale (LPC) by Fred Fiedler is an instrument designed to measure an individual leader's orientation. Fiedler (1967) posited that leaders are either taskoriented or relationship-oriented individuals. Depending on the orientation of the leader, certain leadership styles are effective in certain situations (Fiedler, 1967). While a low LPC score may indicate a task-oriented leader and a high LPC score indicates a relationship-oriented leader, the effectiveness of each leader is contingent on the situational context in which the leadership is being exercised.

Organizational Commitment
Curry et al. (1986) defined organizational commitment as the extent to which an employee identifies with and is involved in an organization. Patchen (1970) and Brown (1969) increased the understanding of organizational commitment and explored the concept among employees of large public organizations. Through the study of organizational commitment, the partisan and affective attachment of employees to the goals and objectives of an organization can be understood. Westover et al. (2010) linked organizational commitment to job satisfaction and motivation. Accordingly, it is important that employers engender a harmonious work environment to ensure fair employee-related decisions (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2007). Porter et al. (1974) identified three components of commitment: (1) a strong belief in an organization's values, (2) a willingness to expend great effort toward achieving organizational objectives, and (3) a strong desire to remain a part of the organization. Therefore, transformational leaders enhance collaboration among diverse organizational members.

An Overview of Leadership Practice in Nigeria
Leadership challenges in Nigeria cannot be fully examined without a historical context. Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and the world's eighth largest oil producer, has been undermined over the last 50 years by ethnic and religious conflict, political instability, rampant official corruption, and an ailing economy (Falola & Heaton, 2008). Adeyemi (2012) and Adesopo (2011) both agreed with Falola and Heaton that Nigeria's state of under development can be attributed to ineffective leadership. Emuwa (2015) also observed that leadership in Nigeria is characterized by positions held through seniority; this is the opposite of transformational leadership, which relies less on positional power and more on individual leaders working with others to bring transformative change. The reliance on positional power can be traced to Nigeria's post-colonial independent era of governance that oscillates between military and civilian rule (Falola & Heaton, 2008), which led to a rise in class differences, exacerbates ethnic and regional prejudice, and has rendered the country economically prostrate and politically divided. Transformational leadership theory, a positive Meta construct, may be the key to unleashing Nigeria's leadership and economic potential. H1: Transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness are related and not independent of each other.

METHOD
This cross-sectional quantitative study examined whether Nigerian government employees embrace transformational leadership and how perceived leadership effectiveness moderates this effect. To measure transformational leadership, the researcher used 20 items from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, also known as the MLQ 5X-Short (Avolio & Bass, 2004). The MLQ 5X-Short has been used extensively to measure transformational leadership and followers' perceptions of transformational leaders (Bass & Avolio, 1989;Medley & Larochelle, 1995;Givens, 2008) and has been evaluated as both reliable and valid over the last two decades. The original MLQ was revised by Avolio and Bass in 2004 and is now known as the MLQ 5X-Short. In addition to measuring transformational leadership, the survey instrument also measures transactional leadership behaviors and the perceptions of the follower related to his or her leader (Avolio & Bass, 2004). The MLQ 5X-short is a 45-item survey with a Likert type scale, for the purpose of this research however, only 20 items that specifically measures transformational leadership was used. Both the leader and follower can be a rater. The leaders can rate themselves and the follower can rate his or her leader. The MLQ 5X-Short is the only instrument that measures the full range of leadership, i.e., transformational leadership and transactional leadership (Avolio & Bass, 2004) and the researcher has received permission from Mind Garden, the licensing agent, to use the MLQ 5X -Short.

Research Design
This study used a quantitative cross -sectional methodology, and the researcher used survey instruments to collect data through self-administered questionnaires. Bass and Avolio (2004) MLQ, Ehrhart (2012) expanded 15-item version of the Ehrhart and Klein (2001) Leader Preference Scale, and the OCQ by Porter et al. (1974) was used to collect data from research participants.
In this research project, the desired positive follower outcome is positive employee organizational commitment and less withdrawal tendencies. According to Woltman et al. (2012), hierarchical linear regression analysis simultaneously investigates relationships within and between hierarchical levels of grouped data. In the process, this analysis is more effective at accounting for inconsistency among variables at different levels than other existing analyses.

Measurement Equivalence
Using an instrument in a country with a different understanding of the English language could present some potential problems. To control the effects of a potential confounding factor in measurement, measurement equivalence that assures that the same construct is being measured was adopted. Adler and Graham (1989) and Davis et al. (1981) among others have suggested that researchers must tackle the hard issues of measurement equivalence to reduce the threats to reliability and validity. In addressing this issue, the researcher will follow Douglas and Craig's (1981) suggestion of translation as a means of assuring measurement equivalence. While examining the three instruments proposed for this study, the researcher noted that item number 15 on the MLQ needs to be rephrased to reflect the same meaning among the Nigerian respondents. In further assuring measurement equivalence, the researcher will check for metric equivalence and scalar equivalence after data collection.

Population and Sampling
The population was drawn from the state of Kwara in North-Central Nigeria, and the sample consisted of a proportionally stratified random selection of government employees in the state to ensure variability. The population's characteristics for the samples are as follows: The government employee must have been employed with the state for a minimum of one year to participate in this survey as this assures that the employee is well acquainted with governmental operations and the leadership of the ministry, department, and agency to be surveyed.

Sample
As the researcher draws up the sample, the objective was to decrease sampling error and to assume confidence that the ensuing results are reliable. This is calculated as n=385/ ((1+ (385/N)). However, taking refusal into consideration and the potential for unusable questionnaires, the researcher considered a 3 percent sampling error to draw a larger sample size. Government records obtained through the help of a gatekeeper showed that total employee nominal roll in the state of Kwara is 10,000. Using the calculation n=385/((1+(385/N)) at 3 percent sampling error will give the researcher 964 staff members. Borg and Gall (1989) agree with the view to increase sample size and decrease sampling error, especially when the researcher plans to break samples into subgroups, expects high attrition rates, and requires a high level of statistical power -all of these situations applied to this research.
Therefore, since the target population is 10,000 government employees and the desired sample size is 10 percent of the total population, the population was divided into three subgroups: junior staff members, middle career staff members, and senior staff members. Further analysis of employee nominal roll showed that 65 percent, or 6,500, are junior staff members; 20 per-cent, or 2,000, are middle career staff members; and 15 percent, or 1,500, are senior staff members. Using the 10 percent rule as suggested by Gay and Diehl (1992) in the proposed study, 65 percent of the sample (or 650) were junior staff members, 20 percent(200) were middle career staff members, and 15 percent (150) were senior staff members.

Instrumentation Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X-Short): Independent Variable
To measure Nigerian transformational leadership, the researcher used 20 items from the MLQ 5X-Short instrument showned in table 1 (Avolio & Bass, 2004). In addition to measuring transformational leadership, the survey instrument also measures transactional leadership behaviors and the perceptions of the follower related to his or her leader (Avolio & Bass, 2004). As noted earlier, the MLQ 5X-Short is a 45-item survey with a Likert type scale (Appendix A). The MLQ is a well-established instrument in the measurement of Transformational Leadership and has been extensively researched and validated by many researchers, such as Fiery (2008), Long (2004), Hahn (2004), and Omer (2005). These researchers found the MLQ reliability alpha coefficient to be above .70 in their respective research projects.

The Leader Preference Scale: Independent Variable
The Leader Preference Scale expanded by Ehrhart (2012) is a 15-item scale that measures participants' responses on a three -point Likert scale that consists of such questions as "To what extent did you work at a high level of performance under this leader?" and "To what extent did you enjoy working with this leader?" The Ehrhart (2012) scale is an expanded version of the earlier Ehrhart and Klein (2001) six-item Leader Preference Scale. The original Ehrhart and Klein (2001) measure has been found to have a high reliability Coefficient with a Cronbach's alpha of .91 in the earlier study. The expanded 15 items were also found to have a Cronbach's alpha of .96 for the charismatic leader, .96 for the relationship-oriented leader, and .96 for the taskoriented leader in the 2012 Ehrhart study. This reliability is significant because transformational leadership belongs to the New Leadership paradigm like Charismatic leadership, whereas relationship and task orientation are dimensions of Transformational leadership. Permission to use the Leader Preference Scale was granted by the correspondence author of the Ehrhart and Klein (2001).

The Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ): Dependent Variable
The OCQ by Porter et al. (1974) measures the relative strength of an individual's identification with and involvement in an organization. It is a 10-item questionnaire with a five-point Likert response scale that ranges from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." Porter et al.'s (1974) OCQ instrument does not need additional permission as the authors already granted permission to anyone using it for research purposes.

Control Variables
There is a need to control for the effects of potentially confounding contextual and demographic factors in examining leadership processes and work-related attitudes (Pawar & Eastman, 1997;Shamir & Howell, 1999;Berson et al., 2001). Prior research has identified age, education, gender, job status, and tenure as predictors of commitment (Mathieu & Zajac, 1990), and errors may arise if controls are not used for these variables. A personal data form was issued as part of this research, and these variables was measured and controlled. The researcher is fully aware that failure to control for these variables may lead to errors in the ability to predict the relationship between transformational leadership, perceived leadership effectiveness, and follower outcome. Table 2 below shows different types of instruments and why the researcher selected MLQ, LPS, and OCQ.

Personal Data Form and Demographic Variables
In addition to the MLQ 5X-Short, the Leader Preference Scale, and the OCQ instruments, the participants were asked to complete a personal data form. This information was used to collect demographic data, like gender, age, tenure, job status, and highest level of education attained.

Procedure Data Collection
Government employees based in the state of Kwara were asked to participate in this study via a personal invitation letter. The description of the survey requirements and procedures were provided in the letter as well. Data were • Transformational Leadership Inventory (Podsakoff et al.; • Global Transformational Leadership Scale (Carless et al. 2000) MLQ -IV • High Reliability Coefficient (.70) •

Measures Leadership Effectiveness
• Leader Preference Scale (Ehrhart, 2012) • Least Preferred Co-Worker Scale (Fiedler, 1967) • Leadership Skills Inventory (Karnes & Chauvin, 1985) LPS -IV The researcher ensured the security of all research documents by keeping them in a locked file cabinet in the researcher's home while all electronic data were password protected. In adhering to best practice, all research documents that can be used as an identifier will be code labeled to conceal participants' identity and then shredded five years after the completion of the study.

Data Analysis
Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to measure the data collected from the study while the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to input the data and conduct the statistical testing (Frankfort-Nachmias & Nachmias, 2008). Using hierarchical linear regression analysis, the researcher determined the contributions of transformational leadership and leadership effectiveness to the prediction of positive follower outcomes, which also led to positive organizational outcome. According to Woltman et al. (2012), hierarchical linear regression analysis simultaneously investigates relationships within and between hierarchical levels of grouped data. In this process, the analysis is more effective at accounting for variance among variables at different levels than other existing analyses.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Analyzing the Pilot Study The first 100 participants of this study comprised a pilot sample that evaluated if there is a statistically significant connection between employee-perceived leadership effectiveness, transformational leadership, and employee organizational outcome. The inclusion criteria, settings, and recruitment process of the pilot sample were identical to those of the main study. The analysis of the data gathered during the pilot testing of this study was focused on testing the applicability of the instruments in a non-western, non-native English-speaking environment and also evaluating the statistical independence of both transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness using a chi-square test.

Analyzing the Main Study
According to a study by Cycyota and Harrison (2006) that analyzed data from 231 studies surveying executives, the mean response rate yielded an overall 32 percent response rate. Subsequent work by other organizational researchers also showed that the average response rate for management and organization research is between 32 and 50 percent. This present research had a response rate of 60.9 percent, which is considered above the normative minimum of 50 percent. This view is supported by other research methodologists like Punch (2003) and Shaughnessy and Zechmeister (1990). The present study also had a total non-response rate of 222, while the item non-response rate was 169.    Table 5 above, it is observed that more than 69 percent of respondents in the selected MDAs had permanent job status, followed by those with temporary job status at 22.99 percent, contract staff members at 3.45 percent, ad-hoc staff members at 3.12 percent, and pool staff members at 1.31 percent. This indicates that majority of the respondents are full-time government employees. This is also corroborated by the age demographics presented earlier in Table 4.2 showing the 18-39-year-olds constituting the largest percentage of respondents.
It also shows that the 60-69 age groups had the lowest number of respondents. 100.0 Table 6 shows that respondents with 1-5 years of tenure are heavily represented in this study, followed by respondents with more than 25 years of tenure.  From the reliability measures in the table 9 below, MLQ and LPS have Cronbach's alpha values of 0.88 and 0.81 respectively. This is an indication of a very strong internal consistency among the items within each of these instruments. Essentially this means that respondents who ten-ded to select high scores for one item within the instruments also tended to select high scores for others within the same instrument and vice versa. Thus, knowing the scores for an item within an instrument would enable one to predict the possible scores for other items in the instrument with some level of accuracy. The Cronbach's alpha value for OCQ indicates a very low internal consistency among the items used in examining organizational commitment.  The reason for this low reliability could be attributed to some of the challenges encountered during the collection of data. Some of these are respondents' bias, respondents' error, the effect of responding in a second language (Allik, Laidra, Realo, & Pullmann, 2004), and probably fear of retribution by supervisors.

Analyzing the Main Study Using Hierarchical Linear Regression
Hierarchical linear regression model was fitted into the data collected and it showed tenure as the unique control variable with a significant connection with the variables of interest (Transformational Leadership and Perceived Leadership) in the prediction of the dependent variable (organizational commitment).
Research Question 1 RQ1: Is there a statistically significant relationship between Nigerian government leadership practices and employee organizational outcome? To answer the above research question, the following hypotheses were considered.
The above hypotheses can be tested using the Chi-square test for association. The test summary is shown in Table 11 The value of the chisquare test statistic = 2750.71 and the p-value < 0.001. Since the p-value is less than the suggested significance level 0.05, the null hypothesis should be rejected. This concludes that Nigerian government leadership practices and employee organizational outcome have an association with each other. The accumulated survey data associated for Nigerian government leadership practices and employee organizational outcome were in nearly a continuous scale, hypotheses 1 can be further investigated to see the linear association between the variables. However, the organizational outcome scores are considered as the response variable and are regressed against the total transformational leadership scores in a simple linear regression model. This leads the researcher to test another hypothesis.
Finally, both the multiple linear regressions and the hierarchical linear regression analysis deployed in this study shows that only perceived leadership effectiveness can be used to evaluate employee organizational outcome to some degree. In all the models fitted, perceived leadership effectiveness had positive regression coefficients. What this means is that, if leadership effectiveness is perceived to be good by an employee in the ministries, departments and agencies surveyed, there will be a corresponding increasein organizational commitment on the part of that employee. Hence, government officials at various MDAs should focus more on increasing their positive leadership styles to foster a positive organization citizenship behavior.
This study examined earlier leadership theories and elaborated more on transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness constructs. Gill et al. (2011) found that employees, followers, or subordinates respond well to empowerment and transformational leadership and their withdrawal intentions decreasing when empowerment variables are present in a given environment. The present study empirically confirms this view of transformational leadership on follower outcomes and the study further reveals the significant effect of perceived leadership effectiveness on positive organizational citizenship behavior among Nigerian public sector employees.
The data for the present study were collected using MLQ 5x short self-rater form, the leader preference scale and the organizational commitment questionnaire. The research examined whether there were statistically significant relationships between transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness and Nigerian government leadership practices and whether there was a statistically significant relationship between transformational leadership, perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational citizenship behavior. The result shows that there is a statistically significant relationship between transformational leadership, perceived leadership effectiveness, and Nigerian government leadership practices with itsp-value= 0.001< α= 0.05 and employee organizational outcome.
The results further revealed that transformational leadership alone amongst the Nigerian sample is less effective in predicting positive or-ganizational citizenship behavior. With p-value = 0.156 and t-value = 1.422, transformational leadership has no significant statistical relationship with employee organizational outcome at 5% significance level. However, the same results showed that perceived leadership effectiveness is a strong predictor of positive organization citizenship behavior where employee perceived leadership effectiveness p-value = 0.018 and t-value = 2.369 at 5% significance level indicating there is a statistically significant positive relationship with employee organizational outcome.
Between the pilot phase and the main study, thirteen hypotheses were generated based on the research questions. Here, the researcher examines the four germane hypotheses generated in the main study (see pp. 88 -93 above); in evaluating hypotheses I, the researcher rejects the null hypothesis Ho since p-value= 0.001< α= 0.05 and concluded that there is a relationship between Nigerian government leadership practices and employee organizational outcome. In hypothesis II, the researcher failed to reject the null hypothesis H 0 since p -value = 0.156 > α = 0.05 and concludes that transformational leadership has no significant linear relationship with organizational outcome. The results of hypothesis III are the same as hypothesis II while the researcher rejects the null hypothesis in hypothesis IV with p -value = 0.018 < α = 0.05 and concludes that perceived leadership effectiveness and employee organizational outcome are closely related with each other.
Findings from the study showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between Nigerian government's administrative leadership practices and organizational citizenship behaviors. The study also shows that transformational leadership theories and perceived leadership effectiveness can be used to explain leadership and organizational outcomes amongst Nigerian government employees.
Findings from the study further showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between perceived leadership effectiveness and the measurements of organizational citizenship behavior like job satisfaction, satisfaction with supervisor, satisfaction with co -employee, satisfaction with general work condition, less withdrawal tendencies and a strong identification with the organizational brand. The regression model shows that perceived leadership is the variable with the most significant impact on organizational outcome even after controlling for all other variables, only perceived leadership is significant with its p-value = 0.028, this means that other factors like transformational leadership and its four dimensions such as idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration have less impact on positive employee outcome when paired with perceived leadership effectiveness amongst Nigerian government employees.
With a view to determining their independent effects on employee work outcomes and avoiding the problem of multicollinearity among large numbers of predictor variables, a partial multiple regression analysis was first introduced. Here, the individual unique contribution of each predictor variable like job tenure to each of the criterion variables (transformational leadership, perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational commitment) were examined while controlling the effects of other variables like job status, respondents' level of education, and age. The regression analysis showed an exhibition of both perceived leadership effectiveness and transformational leadership with perceived leadership effectiveness being exhibited to a greater degree.
From these results, it became evident that perceived leadership effectiveness can augment transformational leadership to produce a greater effect on the performance and satisfaction of employees. Other researchers like Lowe et al (1996), and Bass and Yammarino (1991) that have conducted studies in different contexts indicated a statistically significant relationship between leadership effectiveness and the different dimensions of transformational leadership.
The importance of leadership in organizational outcome cannot be overstated. This study showed that perceived leadership effectiveness predicts positive organizational outcome in Nigeria better than transformational leadership when paired together. However, because of its inherent positive attributes , transformational leadership when augmented by leadership effectiveness and practices can make public institutions more effective and efficient in its service delivery and in its response to the citizenry.
Findings from this survey research support the general theory that leadership is a major determinant of organizational outcome. The study also supports the universal applicability of transformational leadership theories. The study showed that an effective organizational practice will make the Nigerian government more responsive and effective in-service delivery and help develop a sustainable institutional capacity. This study provides an opportunity to better understand the challenges facing Nigerian state governments and why it is important for the Nigerian leadership to embrace leadership effectiveness practices and transformational leadership attributes. The present study may also provide empirical guidance for multinational corporations doing business in Nigeria as they build local talent and in employee engagement.
The present research reinforced Fiedler (1967)'s contingency theory and empirically confirmed that leadership effectiveness is more important in certain contexts than leadership styles (transformational or transactional leadership styles). The result of this research shows that leadership effectiveness leads to higher levels of performance and satisfaction amongst Nigerian government employees.
The result also indicates that perceived leadership effectiveness has more effect on the prediction of positive organizational citizenship behavior, and while the results also showed that employees embrace transformational leadership as shown in a .82 Cronbach's alpha, a higher perceived leadership effectiveness score in the regression model from model one to two showed that perceived leadership effectiveness has a higher positive relationship to organizational commitment than the other predictor variables with its p -value = 0.043. Research such as the one by Pfeffer and Veiga (1999) also showed that there is a direct relationship between an organization's success and its commitment to leadership practices. The current research validates Pfeffer and Verga's previous work. This present research also validated the work of Adanri (2016), whose research previously showed that perceived leadership effectiveness was stronger than transformational leadership as a predictor of positive organizational citizenship behavior among Nigerian local government employees.
The present research answered the call by Steers et al. (2010) by contributing to leadership and management literature in non-Western populations. The present study also answered the call by Muchiri, Cooksey, and Walumbwa (2012) for more evidence-based research on public sector organizational leadership and further builds on the call by Mendonca and Kanungo (1990) on expanding research on leadership and work outcomes in Africa -thereby contributing to cross-cultural leadership literature.
The present research also contributes to leadership effectiveness literature as shown by its correlation coefficient score and validates previous research by Fiedler (1967).While many studies like the one by Lowe et al. (1996) have shown transformational leadership to have a positive relationship with organizational performance, the major finding and contribution of this study is in the discovery that perceived leadership effectiveness plays a more significant role in the prediction of positive organization citizenship behavior amongst Nigerian government employees in the state of Kwara when paired with transformational leadership while controlling for other demographic factors like tenure, job status, qualifications and age group.
This discovery led this researcher to propose a Nigerian leadership model centered on leadership effectiveness. Smith and Peterson (1988) and Ayman (1993) agree with the underlying premise of this proposed model. The authors suggested that effective management and leadership processes must reflect the culture in which they are found. Because the data from this research revealed that leadership effectiveness is of most concern to Nigerian government employees, this researcher proposes that managers and leaders should listen to their followers/employees and place leadership effectiveness at the top of their leadership training, seminar, or workshop. This researcher also suggests that managers and leaders should augment their leadership style with transformational leadership attributes. This view is supported by the results of this research.
This research has shown that leadership effectiveness combined with transformational leadership will lead to positive organizational citizenship behavior and Nigerian government officials can improve their leadership effectiveness by engaging in practices that positively engage their employees as well as serving as role models to their subordinates. By embracing 's four dimensions of transformational leadership, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration, Nigerian government officials can create an environment where individuals could function to the best of their potentials. Improving on these practices could improve productivity, enhance employee's job satisfaction, reduce turnover, enhance customer relations and create a high -level of employee organizational commitment.

Developing the Nigerian Leadership Model
An etic approach towards transplanting a Western leadership theory into a non -Western context proved to be inadequate as the result of this research study has shown. An indigenous emic approach based on the experience and desire of the people will be better in this context.
While this research started with the objective of examining the impact of transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness on follower outcomes, the survey result and the non -survey, lived experiences of the respondents collected from the field showed respondents' leadership experience as characterized by centralization, high formalization, and authoritarianism. To positively engage followers, Nigerian leaders and senior administrators are encouraged to embrace the four dimensions of transformational leadership to enhance their leadership effectiveness. The four dimensions of transformational leadership as shown in figure 2 below is the basis for this proposed model.  (Bass & Stogdill, 2008). This figure illustrates the four dimensions of transformational leadership In figure 3 below, the relationship between leadership effectiveness and positive organization citizenship behavior with transformational leadership augmenting the relationship between leadership effectiveness and OCB demonstrates the importance of transformational leadership style in fostering positive follower outcomes. The Nigerian leadership effectiveness model illustrates the effect of perceived leadership effectiveness on positive organization citizenship behavior. It also shows transformational leadership augmenting the relationship between perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational citizenship behavior. In figure 4 below, the Nigerian Perceived Transformational leadership model is presented, and it synthesize both Bass and Stogdill (2008) four dimensions of transformational leadership and Ajia (2017) Nigeria leadership effectiveness model.  The Nigerian perceived transformational leadership model proposed above illustrates the non -linear relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable. In other words, it illustrates the impact of perceived leadership effectiveness on positive organization citizenship behavior and the moderating effect of transformational leadership on both perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational commitment.
It is important to note that while this research study started with the assumption that perceived leadership effectiveness might moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment, the result of the research however showed transformational leadership moderating the relationship between perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational commitment.
The result also showed that especially for the Nigerian sample, leadership effectiveness is more important than leadership style. This model can be viewed in two ways; 1. That transformational leadership can moderate the relationship between perceived leadership effectiveness and organizational commitment and 2. That percei-ved leadership effectiveness can augment the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment. This discovery is important as many leadership scholars among whom are Yukl (1989), , Avolio and Locke (2002), and Northouse (2010) have argued more in favor of leadership styles like transformational leadership and authentic leadership over contingency theories like perceived leadership effectiveness.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
There is a need to introduce culture as a variable that may mediate the relationship between leadership effectiveness and organizational commitment. This view is supported by Den Hartog et al., (1999) and Jung and Avolio (1999).
Choosing a longitudinal research design could also present a vastly different result, and it will be interesting to see whether the respondents will be consistent in their responses if surveyed over an extended period. Future scholars should also expand data collection to other states within Nigeria to make the data more representative of the larger Nigerian workforce.
It is also recommended that future research should examine the impact of transformational leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness on follower outcomes using a mixed-methods research design. By augmenting quantitative with qualitative methods of data collection, a future researcher could capture more adequately the lived experiences of survey respondents.